Today was to be the day for travel to the nearby ancient town Suzhou… but alas, we were thwarted! Though there are a reported 60 train trips available between the two cities, we couldn’t get a train for several hours when we showed up at 10am to purchase tickets. Whether that was due to actual busyness or poor communication we’ll never fully know. On a side note, the main Shanghai Railway station was quite confusing, as you have to cross the street to get to the ticket counter and you can’t enter the main station without a ticket. At least we learned that English speaking agents are identified by a small sign in the upper right corner of their ticket window.

Instead, we wandered over to the M50 Art Center area. This space is a colorful mix of galleries, workspaces, and cafes. Very chill on a Saturday morning save for the horde of teenagers on what seemed like a scavenger hunt. While there was some street art, it was nothing too special. We did, however, find a nice pottery gallery where we found a vase for ourselves and a few other pieces for gifts. Our favorite spot was the Island 6 gallery, with lots of LED ‘paintings’ and other interesting art.

We stopped by the hotel briefly to drop off our pottery, then traveled to the Jing’an Sculpture park near the Natural History Museum. Lots of families were enjoying the nice weather in this park. While we were here the fountain turned on, surprising everyone with several cool patterns. Amongst our other favorites were the deer with butterfly antlers and the metal hands sculpture, “Sisters.”

On a friend’s recommendation, we tried Vegetarian Lifestyle for lunch. The ‘short ribs’ were great but the Kung Pao ‘chicken’ was just OK (the texture was spot on but the flavor was very one-dimensional). Leandra’s dumplings with mushroom and other veg were also just OK, a bit bland, and the dipping sauce that came with didn’t add much to the party. Service was incredibly slow with our waitress disappearing for long stretches. Pricey for what you get, I don’t think we would return.

We had some daylight left, so we hopped on the subway to the Pudong side for views of the Pearl TV tower and other downtown buildings up close via the circular pedestrian walkway.

Thinking a glass (or two) of wine would be nice, we jumped back on the metro (thank goodness for three-day unlimited metro cards) to the Jing’an Temple area, which was all messed up with construction. We arrived at Dr. Wine after Google said they would be open, but there was no one inside and the place was very dim. Disappointed, we started searching for other options when a man walked past us into the restaurant… they were open, just really quiet! With the choice of any seat, we grabbed a cozy couch I ordered a Nelson, NZ Chardonnay, then a Sav Blanc from the same region. Leandra had a rosé and then a South African pinotage, and we split a dried fruit and mixed nuts snack. Several groups came in for dinner and were seated upstairs so the downstairs lounge remained relaxed and uncrowded for a Saturday night.

For the past two years we’ve had a Southwest Companion Pass that lets us buy one ticket, get one free. With only a few months to go before the pass expires we made it a priority to get back out to the Pacific Northwest, home to many friends and many of our favorite wineries. As luck would have it, prices for the weekend before Halloween were quite good, so we made plans to largely revisit our Oct 2015 trip.

Originally we considered exploring the Columbia River Valley in Eastern Washington for part of our time, but after checking drive times realized we could just as easily return to the Willamette Valley in Oregon where we are already club members of two wineries. So we did just that, driving the 3.5 hours from Seattle to Dundee, OR on Thursday, then returning on Saturday, leaving Sunday and Monday for wine tasting in Woodinville, WA. We experienced fantastic weather and fall color, caught up with a half dozen friends, tried some great wine, and may have come home with more bottles than our wine fridge can actually store. As usual, Washington and Oregon left us planning future return trips…

We stayed here in 2015, so we knew the location was convenient for wine tasting in Woodinville. As with our last trip, our room was quite spacious with a large bed and wall of windows looking out over the trees.

Breakfast is quite good here, with an omelet station, several hot buffet items, breads, cereal, etc. This stay was as good as our previous stay, so we would definitely return in the future.

Lunch @ Le Petit Marche – Having just landed and dropped off our bags we needed lunch, quickly! Even at 1:30p this restaurant was packed, but they managed to squeeze us into a small table. Unfortunately they were out of the Ravioles de Royan, so I ordered the Salade China, a chopped salad with lots of soy/sesame chicken, carrots and lots of Asian-inspired ingredients that was quite good. Meanwhile Leandra ordered a strange take on steak tartare with asian-influenced spices that was lightly grilled on the top and bottom. She enjoyed it as well.

Dinner @ Bistrot L’Oulette – After wandering through d’Orsay we were quite ready for dinner. My red wine braised beef stew was amazing, as was Leandra’s cassoulet (although it took about 10 minutes for hers to cool down enough so she could eat it). We split a bottle of red wine that went great with our meals but the most memorable part was the chocolate tart. Flaky and light, absolutely delicious.

Cocktails @ Little Red Door – on the advice of our friends Anna and Loren, we walked the .7 mile to this hidden cocktail bar. On arrival the doorman had us wait until seats were ready before letting us in, probably 10ish minutes. Once seated we perused the suggested cocktail list which were each inspired by architecture styles. I choose the Functionalism, tequila with citrus cordial and functional oils floating on top. Leandra went with the Brutalism, mixing mezcal, St.Germain and other flavors with a sprig of fried baby’s breath flowers!

Snack @ Boulangerie Martin – with a late dinner planned we needed a snack, so stopped for take-away pastries. I choose the eclair with raspberries and Leandra a cheese tartlet, and both were quickly consumed in a small park by Notre Dame.

Dinner @ Au Bourguignon du Marais – our table wasn’t quite ready for our 9pm reservation, so we were asked to sit at a side table and given menus and a light appetizer while we waited. A few minutes later we were shown to our table and introduced to our waiter who was quite warm and personable. I went straight for the Boeuf Bourguignon, Leandra the Tartare traditionnel, and neither of us regretted our choice! To top it off we split the Crème brûlée with bourbon sauce. OMG.

Saturday

Lunch @ Creperie Beaubourg – Crepes! I tried their house cider to go with my ham and cheese crepe, while Leandra stuck to wine with her mushroom and roquefort crepe. Both were fine, but not great. We sat outside under the awning enjoying the people watching around Stravinsky square.

Dinner @ Al Caratello – reservations got us a window seat at this busy little Italian restaurant in Montmartre. Leandra ordered the gnocchi bolognese while I ordered the mushroom and ham pasta. Everything was excellent. All tables were full during our meal and there were rotating groups of diners taking smoke breaks in the street out front. The owners also have a place across the street so one waiter was frequently shuttling cocktails to the other location. After we paid our bill we were offered a small glass of limoncello to end our meal. Lovely.

Dinner @ Les Philosophes – another busy restaurant, even at 9pm on Sunday. I went for the wild cod fillet in coconut milk curry sauce, while Leandra choose the French Onion soup and pork pâté (Thierry Schweitzer). Service was a bit harried here, it was definitely more difficult to get a server’s attention than at other restaurants. I did like the fact that you could get varying sizes of several wines by the glass (25cl, 50cl, bottle).

Wow. Just – wow. The Orsay covers mid-19th century to early 20th century, and simply has so many masterpieces. We visited on Thursday evening when they are open late until 9:45p, and thoroughly enjoyed the 2.5h hours we spent wandering the halls here. The upper floor filled with Monets, Van Goghs, Degas and so many others was awesome. Some highlights:

We bought the combined Orsay / Orangerie ticket, but we didn’t visit the Orangerie until our last day. A much smaller space, the ground floor consists of two large oval rooms filled with massive Monet waterlily paintings as part of his Nymphéas series.

Downstairs is the Guillaume collection, with a number of interesting pieces from Modigliani, Picasso, and Matisse and others.

The Louvre is seriously enormous. We arrived a few minutes after 9am (when they open) and were through security and the ticket desk within 15 minutes… we left at 2:30pm, and still had plenty of rooms we hadn’t yet seen. Thankfully, we were able to see all the sections that we were most interested in, as well as a few pleasant surprises. Some of the highlights:

We decided to skip the uber-famous Versailles in favor of Fontainebleau in the hopes of much smaller crowds, and it worked out well for us.

The trickiest part may have been figuring out the trains in Gare de Lyon – there are a lot of options, and we wandered through several sections before we found an information booth that could help. Once we confirmed the correct train the rest was easy, including the bus at the Fontainebleau Avon train stop that took us straight into town (and was included on our Visite ticket, in addition to a 2€ discount for the entrance tickets).

The outside is quite imposing and impressive…

The palace has parts dating back to the 1100s, with many additions and renovations through the 1800s. Once inside, the opulence is rather staggering. Tapestries, carvings, and paintings adorn nearly every surface.

Altogether, we spent about 3 hours wandering the palace, and 30 minutes the flower gardens and fountains – a nice half-day trip away from the bustle of the city.

In February 2017 I had an important decision to make – should I share a good deal ($385) on flights from Raleigh to Paris with Leandra? If I did, it would mean returning, and while it was nice enough, Paris hadn’t been high on my list of interests for a return visit. However, we hadn’t seen the museums or several other sights on our first trip, so with that in mind, we scheduled a 4-day trip for October.

Since we had quite a few parts of Paris we wanted to see, we decided to get 5-day tourist pass which provided unlimited rides in any of the 5 paris zones, including the airport. Given the number of metro rides we took it certainly worked to our advantage. However, we will likely look into the Navigo Découverte pass for a future trip, as it was significantly cheaper. Something to remember for next time.

Although I was less excited about this particular trip than Leandra, in the end, we both enjoyed absorbing the art, the wine and food, and we’d return for a less touristy trip if the price was good in the future.

Where We Stayed

We spent our first two nights in this cozy little hotel in Le Marais, well located two blocks from the Saint-Paul metro stop and surrounded by shops and cafes. Check-in was speedy, and we just barely fit our two bags into the elevator with us for the ride to the fourth floor. Our room faced the street, and a good amount of street noise came through the windows, so earplugs are recommended. Leandra was also annoyed by the lack of a coffee maker / electric kettle. Otherwise the room was comfortable, and the bathroom was spacious and clean.

For nights three and four we switched to the Hilton since we had a free weekend pass to use up. Check-in was easy, and elevators large enough for us and bags. Our room was a little bigger than at Malher, and did have a coffee maker. The bed was rather firm, too much for us, and the pillows were very soft.

Breakfast on the second floor was quite nice, with a good assortment of baked goods, meats, and cheeses. Notably they had a very nice fresh orange juice, not that common in our Europe experiences.

The Hilton is next to Gare Saint-Lazare, so there are several metro and train options available, as well as a large shopping mall, but we didn’t find any interesting restaurants in the immediate area.